Fresh Autumn Flower Ideas (Plus Tips from a Pro on How to Make them Last)

Fresh flowers are great happiness inducers. They’re also one of the easiest ways to bring a seasonal change of scene to a room—especially if you’re entertaining. Now that the social season is kicking in, we talked to Michael Gaffney, a professional florist and founder of the American School of Flower Design, about fresh ideas for autumn floral arrangements.

“You don’t have to use dried flowers or create an arrangement with the end-of-season harvest in autumn arrangements,” he says. “You can suggest fall, rather than interpret it literally, by using flowers with autumn colors, such as orange, red and yellow. You can also make arrangements using only greenery, there’s a range of wonderful foliage that comes in shades of red, brown and even black.”

He favors using elegant flowers, like orange roses or golden orchids, and setting them off with pittosporum. Other plants he likes to use in autumn arrangements are yarrow, gerbera, seed eucalyptus, solidago (which grows in droves along the highways), and celadon wheat. For a touch of the unusual, he likes to use monkey pods. “One of the simplest things you can do is gather a bunch of mums and collar them with something green like seeded eucalyptus,” he said.

He also gave me these trade secrets pros use to preserve fresh flower arrangements and make them last up to month!

1.   Buy only the freshest flowers. “Befriend the flower man at your neighborhood grocery store,” Michael says. “He’ll know where the freshest flowers are in the back room.”

2.   Soak the entire bunch of flowers under lukewarm water for 20-30 minutes before putting them in a vase. “Just as your doctor tells you to drink water several times a day to stay healthy, hydration is essential for flowers,” he says. “When you put them under water, the flowers will hydrate through their petals and leaves as well as through the capillaries of the stems, and they’ll last twice as long.”

3.   Coat the arrangement with a product called Crowning Glory. “Everyone in the business uses it,” he says. “It’s like wax in a bottle—when you apply it to the leaves and petals, it seals in the moisture so the flowers don’t dehydrate.” It’s made be a company called Floralife, comes in 32 oz. spray bottles and is available at Michaels stores.

Two other tips: Add 3-4 drops of bleach to the water to kill bacteria that make flowers fade and cut the stems a little shorter every couple of days to trim the distance water needs to travel to the blooms.

Michael’s School of Flowers offers classes in seven cities throughout the country. And if you’re in New York this week, he’s offering classes at The Players club in Gramercy Park starting October 1. For more info on the School visit its Web site or call 877-322-5666.